Kate Harriet Alexandra Rock, Baroness Rock (born 9 October 1968) is a British

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

politician and member of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. Formerly Vice-Chairman of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

with special responsibility for business engagement, she was nominated for a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

age in August 2015.

Education

Rock was educated at

Hanford School Hanford School is a girls' boarding preparatory school located in Hanford, Child Okeford, Dorset, England, established in 1947 and located in a grade II* listed house built in 1604 by Sir Robert Seymer. History Hanford House was built in Jaco ...

Sherborne School for Girls Sherborne Girls, formally known as Sherborne School for Girls, is an independent day and boarding school for girls, located in Sherborne, North Dorset, England. There were 485 pupils attending in 2019–2020, with over 90 per cent of them livin ...

and

Oxford Polytechnic Polytechnic is most commonly used to refer to schools, colleges, or universities that qualify as an institute of technology or vocational university also sometimes called universities of applied sciences. Polytechnic may also refer to: Educatio ...

, where she took a BA degree in Publishing and History.

Business career

Between August 2014 and November 2017, Rock served as non-executive director and as chairman of the Remuneration Committee of Imagination Technologies plc (a

FTSE 250 The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...

high technology company, which was sold to Canyon Bridge Partners). She also served as a non-executive director of First News (UK) Ltd, a national newspaper for young children, between 2014 and February 2017. On 1 September 2018 she joined the Board of Keller Group plc (the world's largest provider of geotechnical solutions) and is now the senior independent director, serving on the Audit, Nomination, Remuneration and Health, Safety, Environment and Quality Committees. In October 2022, it was announced that Rock would succeed Paul Golby as Chair of the

Costain Group Costain Group plc is a British construction and engineering company headquartered in Maidenhead, England. Founded in 1865, its history includes extensive housebuilding and mining activities, but it later focused on civil engineering and commerci ...

Public service

Between 2015 and 2016 Rock served as Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party with special responsibility for business engagement. She was created Baroness Rock, of Stratton in the

County of Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , Do ...

on 15 October 2015. In 2016/2017 she was a Visiting Parliamentary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. Between 2017 and 2018 she was a member of the

Select Committee on

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and since 2019 she has sat on the

Select Committee on

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

Technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

. She has also served since May 2018 as a member of the

Select Committee on the

Rural Economy Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural developmen ...

. In November 2018 she was appointed as a founding board member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, an advisory body set up by the UK Government to seek to maximise the benefits of data-enabled technologies, including artificial intelligence. She is also a founding Ambassador of “Women Supporting Women”, a group at

The Prince's Trust The Prince's Trust ( cy, Ymddiriedolaeth y Tywysog) is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are u ...

committed to changing the lives of young women, and is a member of The Prince's Trust's Philanthropy Advisory Board.

Personal life

Her husband Caspar Rock, is Chief Investment Officer at Cazenove Capital Management, the wealth management arm of

Schroders Schroders plc is a British multinational asset management company, founded in 1804. The company employs over 5,000 people worldwide in 32 locations around Europe, America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Headquartered in the City of London, it ...

in the UK, Channel Islands and Asia.Dylan Lobo
''Axa Architas' Caspar Rock joins Cazenove''
City Wire, 4 April 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rock, Kate 1968 births Living people People educated at Hanford School People educated at Sherborne Girls Alumni of Oxford Brookes University Conservative Party (UK) life peers Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century British women politicians